PETALING JAYA: The national security policy will have better strategies to face the latest form of security threat - the emergence of Covid-19 worldwide, says Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin.

       “The spread of the Covid-19 pandemic on a global scale beginning in March 2020 brought a different kind of threat to the nation and the National Security Council (NSC).

       “As such, the new national security policy 2021-2025 had taken into account the Covid-19 threat and strategies to overcome it, ” Muhyiddin said in conjunction with NSC’s 50th anniversary celebration Tuesday (July 13).

       He said the NSC had introduced a new approach that encompassed total security known as Comprehensive Security (Comsec).

       He noted that Comsec was a new doctrine which replaced the total defence concept of Hanruh.

       The new concept, he added, would merge elements of internal security, defence, public peace, politics, economy, social, public health and environment.

       “To implement this concept (Comsec), the entire national security machinery at all levels of administration and all Malaysians must mobilise effort to discharge the responsibilities concerned, ” he said.

       Earlier in his speech, Muhyiddin said the nation was faced with new forms of threats, both internal and external through traditional and non-traditional means.

       He said the council took the lead in managing national security and was constantly playing a role in the background as "a silent strategist, a silent thinker and silent doer".

       Muhyiddin commended the achievements of the NSC since its formation on July 7, 1971 to bring peace and sovereignty back to the nation in the wake of the riots in 1969.

       "Through the council, the government managed to overcome the Lahad Datu, Sabah intrusion in 2013, coordinate various evacuation missions of Malaysian abroad during the Arab Spring conflict in several Middle East countries since 2011 till 2015 including peace talks in Southern Thailand and Mindanao, among others, " he said.

       He added that the NSC had undergone transformation following amendments to the National Security Council Act 2016, which provided the council with legal authority and not just administrative powers.

       He said that further transformation of the National Security Policy was done for the first time in 2017 and was reviewed again to produce the National Security Policy 2021-2025.